The Open Education Disc offers you nearly 50 carefully selected programs to help with educational and student needs.

It is also built especially for users who have very little technical knowledge and offers simple to understand descriptions and instructions. The disc is split into 8 easy to navigate categories consisting of:

Office and Design - Internet - Art and Graphics - Multimedia - Science and Mathematics - Games - Utilities - Advanced Internet

This is a truly awsome package of the best Open Source software available. Download it and burn it to disc now!

NOTE: The download process isn't as straightforward as the other freeware on this site - you need to burn the download to disc as an ISO file - here’s how to do it:

1. Download and install InfraRecorder
2. Run InfraRecorder.
3. Select Actions from the menu, and choose Burn Image.
4. Find where you downloaded the OpenDisc ISO, and select it.
5. Follow the prompts.
6. Enjoy!

* Tablature editor
* Score Viewer
* Multitrack display
* Autoscroll while playing
* Note duration management
* Various effects (bend, slide, vibrato, hammer-on/pull-off)
* Support for triplets (5,6,7,9,10,11,12)
* Repeat open and close
* Time signature management
* Tempo management
* Imports and exports gp3,gp4 and gp5 files

Dr. LeBeau's home page - a resource for teachers, students and curious adults

Education Resources - Websites compiled by Sue LeBeau

Tools For Teachers - Websites compiled by Sue LeBeau

RQ Words

This program lets you play with words using your own creativity.
It builds on the popular idea of 'refridgerator magnets', combining this with the power of the computer.
Your screen will fill with various words, and you'll be able to arrange them to make different phrases and sentences. You can also make your own words, and import your own text files to scramble and reassemble. Use it to unstick 'writer's block' or 'polish' your lyrical masterpieces or anything else you can think of!
Save your creation as a simple webpage. English, Spanish, German, and Swedish interface.

Platforms: Windows 95, Windows 2000, Windows 98, Windows XP, Windows Me

Sebran's ABC - it's never too early for your child to become familiar with letters and numbers!

Sebran's ABC's colorful pictures, pleasant music, and gentle games teach letters, numbers, simple math, and rudiments of reading

The six simpler exercises display four possible answers. Choose the right one and it becomes a smile; an error gets a frown and a chance to try again. The How Many? counting game introduces the numbers from 1 to 9. These are used in the Add, Subtract, and Multiply matching games, which each function at two levels of difficulty. In Pick A Picture, one of four pictures matches a word; First Letter offers four possible letters completing a word. Your child can employ the skills gained in these exercises to play Memory, Word Memory, or Hangman. Finally, the ABC Rain, Letter Rain, and 1+2 Rain games help train little fingers in using the keyboard.

The program teaches using either Afrikaans, Bahasa Indonesian, Breton, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Samoan, Slovak, Spanish, Turkish or Swedish (in Swedish, the droll zebra gracing the main screen is called "sebran")

Learn the letters - Free Software for learning the alphabet.

Learn Letters teaches children to know and make the 26 letters of the alphabet. Using the shapes the letters have in common, the child is guided as he combines shapes to make the lower case letters of the alphabet. Learning the names and shapes of the letters of the alphabet is the first step to reading. This is one of the most important, most basic things a child needs to know to learn to read. Learn Letters makes learning the letters of the alphabet fun and easy, even for children whose fine motor coordination is not yet well developed. Fun, educational hands-on learning.

Learn Letters requires Windows 3.1, 95, 98, Me or XP, a sound card and speakers.

Beginning letter sounds part 1

Free Software for learning beginning phonics.

Free educational software. Letter Sounds helps children make the first, vital connection between the letters of the alphabet and the sounds they represent. Children drag pictures to the letters that make the first sounds of the word that describes the picture. Voice is used to be sure that children know the right word and to reinforce the connection between the first letter and the first sound in the word. Fun, educational hands-on learning.

Letter Sounds requires Windows XP, Me, 3.1, 95, 98, Me or XP, a sound card and speakers.

Letter Sounds 2 requires a PC running Windows XP, Me, 98, 95 or 3.1 operating system, a sound card and speakers.

2+2 math for kids is a program aimed to help children's education in the area of basic mathematical skills.

The programme teaches the child how to count, compare numbers, add, subtract, multiply, and divide. 2+2 math for kids can be used for individual lessons as also at school. Interesting exercises, intuitive usage, beautiful music, attractive graphics and lovable narration make children return to learn mathematics with pleasure.

2+2 math is the winner of no less than 24 awards - see the home page!

Alans Fractions makes learning fraction math fun!

This software introduces Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, and Division of fractions. Easy interface for kids. Fun sounds keep kids interested. Many configuration options available. All answers and setting changes are logged. Full help file. Running count of correct and incorrect answers. Very popular program, used worldwide in schools, homes, and other learning environments.

ESB Calc

ESBCalc is a Freeware Scientific Calculator for Windows with Infix Notation, Brackets, Scientific Functions (Trigonometric, Hyperbolic, Logarithmic - including Base 10, Base 2 & Natural - plus more), Memory, Paper Trail, Result History List and more. v5 Includes support for Prefix functions so to evaluate log (10) you can enter log 10 rather than 10 log (which is the default behaviour)

Works on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Millennium, Windows NT4, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows 2003.

Periodic Table Classic - The application contains all the elements of the Periodic Table along with images of the elements in their natural state, as well as lots of other information and interactive displays.

The periodic table now comes in three versions. They all contain the same amount of information.

Standard Version:
Designed to be used on desktops set to 1024x768 or better. Contains many small images of most of the elements.
Extra Version:
This is identical to the Standard Version except it comes with 155 high resolution images of the elements in various physical states.
Mini Version:
This version contains the same smaller images that comes with the standard version, except that it's designed to be used on desktops of 800x600.

Kinetics Lab
Explore gravity, friction, mass, and inertia by putting balls in motion across a customizable metal surface. Enter a world where balls roll and collide on virtual metal that you shape and drill. Send balls up inclines, through grooves and down holes as you experiment with friction, motion and inertia.

Students can add as many as six balls of different mass to the surface. They can customize the surface by adding ramps, channels, dents, and holes. They can alter the friction, change the force of gravity, and tilt the surface and observe the effects. Students can also save their projects.

Students can take the animated tour of the kinetics laboratory for demonstrations and instructions on how to use the tools.

Shadows is a program used to design sundials.

It can be used by everybody without any required technical skills. Shadows will calculate everything and print the clockface according the user's preferences

Celestia

The free space simulation that lets you explore our universe in three dimensions.

Celestia runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

Unlike most planetarium software, Celestia doesn't confine you to the surface of the Earth. You can travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy.
All movement in Celestia is seamless; the exponential zoom feature lets you explore space across a huge range of scales, from galaxy clusters down to spacecraft only a few meters across. A 'point-and-goto' interface makes it simple to navigate through the universe to the object you want to visit.
Celestia is expandable. Celestia comes with a large catalog of stars, galaxies, planets, moons, asteroids, comets, and spacecraft. If that's not enough, you can download dozens of easy to install add-ons with more objects.

Note: Get the Celestia 'Motherlode' add ons here: http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/

Saturn Sounds This is an audio file of radio emissions from Saturn - it has an eerie but beautiful quality.

Saturn is a source of intense radio emissions, which have been monitored by the Cassini spacecraft. The radio waves are closely related to the auroras near the poles of the planet. These auroras are similar to Earth's northern and southern lights.

Click the saturn picture on the left to hear the 75 second long audio file of radio emissions from Saturn. When the page loads, click the smaller thumbnail picture.

We have edited the clip into a 29 minute 'seamless' mp3 track - to download this, click the link below.

Download the full length Saturn mp3

In addition, we can also mail you the 29 minute track as an Audio CD (plain, unprinted CD in a plastic wallet) for GBP 5.00 postage free, worldwide. email us for details of how to pay by PayPal here: Mail us for details of how to pay!

Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA SpacePlace - Where science is fun!

Games - Projects - Animations - Cool Subjects - Amazing Facts - Friends share - Teachers Corner!

To help with teaching the first principles of electricity, we've made Crocodile Clips Elementary - for Windows and Macintosh. It's based on the mathematically accurate simulation engine from Crocodile Physics and Crocodile Technology, which are worldwide in middle and high schools. It has an easy-to-use interface and only the components you need at elementary level.

Crocodile Clips Elementary comes with a set of worksheets introducing electric current and circuits, and you can also use the pictorial components to build your own circuits, adding text and images as you go. All of the circuits you design simulate just like in real life, letting you experiment with electricity in a safe and enjoyable way.

However, the best thing about Crocodile Clips Elementary is this: it's completely free! All you need to do to download your free copy is fill out the registration form

Dia is a gtk+ based diagram creation program released under the GPL license.

Dia is inspired by the commercial Windows program 'Visio', though more geared towards informal diagrams for casual use. It can be used to draw many different kinds of diagrams. It currently has special objects to help draw entity relationship diagrams, UML diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and many other diagrams. It is also possible to add support for new shapes by writing simple XML files, using a subset of SVG to draw the shape.

It can load and save diagrams to a custom XML format (gzipped by default, to save space), can export diagrams to a number of formats, including EPS, SVG, XFIG, WMF and PNG, and can print diagrams (including ones that span multiple pages).

Tux Paint is a free, award-winning drawing program for children ages 3 to 12

It combines an easy-to-use interface, fun sound effects, and an encouraging cartoon mascot who guides children as they use the program.

Tux Paint has an entertaining interface! Fun sound effects are played when tools are selected and used and a cartoon version of Tux, the Linux penguin, appears at the bottom to give tips, hints and information.

Drawing tools include paint brush, rubber stamp, line tool, shape tool, text tool, 'magic' special effects tool, eraser and undo.

Tux Paint is far too fully featured to list all the effects and tools here. Check it out!

Tux Paint runs on a variety of platforms, including all versions of Windows (including Tablet PC), Mac OS X 10.3 and up, Linux, FreeBSD and NetBSD. It works well on older, slower systems, as well as thin-clients such as LTSP, Citrix® and Windows Terminal Services. It even runs on some handheld computers!

Kiddo -.kiddo is a fun, free Windows drawing program for children aged 1 to 2

Very simple to use - select from snowy trees, coloured squares, space images, saturn, moon or stingray nebula, then move the mouse around to fill the screen with swirling coloured images!

Hit any of the keys to get a green frog with the letter or number of the key on it's tummy!

Older kids can enjoy too!

FreeMind

FreeMind - free mind mapping software

So you want to write a completely new metaphysics? Why don't you use FreeMind?

You have a tool at hand that remarkably resembles the tray slips of Robert Pirsig, described in his sequel to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance called Lila.

Do you want to refactor your essays in a similar way you would refactor software? Or do you want to keep personal knowledge base, which is easy to manage? Why don't you try FreeMind?

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map)

Tux Typing is an educational typing tutor for children.

It features several different types of gameplay, at a variety of difficulty levels.

Tux Typing is Open Source software, released under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It is part of the Tux4Kids project, which is a Schoolforge member. Tux Typing is also included in Debian Jr.
Sponsored by Tux4Kids

Jan's illustrated computer literacy

Do you feel confused, befuddled, & lost when it comes to computers?
Do you wish you had the time, and dollars, to take a real, live course on computers?

Then these lessons are for you!

KPL - Kid’s Programming Language

KPL makes it easy for kids to learn computer programming. KPL makes it fun, too, by making it especially easy to program computer games, with cool graphics and sound.

KPL is not only for programming games – it’s for learning other things, too. But learning is best when learning is fun, right?